The harnessing of Niagara represented a great triumph for modern technology. The progress of construction offered many opportunities for illustrating this theme. In order to build a "gathering dam" which would direct water into the intake openings, temporary coffer dams were erected and the river water drained from the building area. The river bed was said to be "unwatered." The commissioners of the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park wrote in their 1902 annual report that construction of the Ontario Power Company's coffer dam "demonstrates the facility with which the waters even of the Niagara River may be trained to flow in any desired direction. This photo is of the Electrical Development Company dam, built in 26 feet of water.
